The Valiant Taste of Death but Once
by Brave November
Summary: Narration of Shepard's last thoughts and feelings during the destruction of the first Normandy. T for character death.


Author's Note: I wrote this to try my hand at writing suspense and in the present tense. Please let me know if I fell short of either mark. The title comes from Shakespeare: "Cowards die a thousand times before their death. The valiant never taste of death but once." It amuses me to use it here, since my Shepard must've suffered a thousand deaths as I played through the trilogy, not to mention the two canonical ones! There shouldn't be any spoilers in here, but if you haven't played ME 2. . .please, please start!

Her ship is in flames around her. It looks like hell—leaping fire and billowing smoke, alarms shrieking like damned souls. Her helmet filters out the smoke, but she imagines she can still taste it, acrid and burning in her throat. Kaidan is gone—everyone is gone except for her and Joker. Captain and pilot, trapped inside the burning husk that was their home.

She pushes aside regret, runs through the mess. One of the stairways is blocked—she narrowly escapes being pinned by falling debris—and as she opens the other door she feels the cold tug of vacuum. Her magnetic boots keep her from falling away into the void as the flames die around her.

It is impossible to run here. She moves slowly past the shattered command post, and cannot resist the urge to give it a last pat in farewell. It shudders beneath her hand. The Normandy is falling apart despite Joker's pleas. All she can do is make sure neither of them dies with her—save what she can and abandon what she cannot.

The bridge is littered with debris that hasn't quite torn free of the Normandy's body. She looks up as she navigates the maze of broken consoles, twisted hoses, dislodged chairs. The frozen face of Alchera looms above her, and beyond it the stars still gleam with indifferent beauty. The calmness of the void reassures her somehow. _If I die, at least I'll have a nice view, _she thinks, without bitterness. A moment of gazing, and she shakes herself back into action. This is no time for poetry or philosophy. She has a crewman to save.

Her helmsman clings desperately to his post, determined to save his "baby." But her flat assessment convinces him as the shrilling, red-lit console cannot. The Normandy is doomed. He sighs and concedes defeat, prepares to leave his station for the last time—

And that is when their foe returns, bombarding their dying ship with golden destruction in a superfluous coup-de-gras. As the beam burns through the CIC deck, she can only wonder why. The ship buckles and twists as if in agony, and some part of her wants to cry out as if the Normandy is a living thing, a comrade suffering a cruel death at enemy hands. But she is too practical for that.

She grabs Joker's arm, they hobble/run across the unsteady deck to the evac shuttle. The Normandy's death throes reverberate through her body. She shoves him inside, careless of his fragile bones, but another blast shakes her free before she can follow. Frantically, she snatches for a handhold, barely manages to cling to the bulkhead. Golden energy bars her way—even if she could get her footing, she could never get back to the shuttle before it is destroyed.

_Save what you can._

Her grip slips. With Joker's cry ringing in her hears, she reaches out and with a last, desperate effort, pushes the button that will launch the shuttle.

The ship explodes around her and she tumbles free, buffeted and shaken by the force of it. Something collides with her body—bones snap—breath gone before she can cry out in pain—her hardsuit fries as she is flung through the edge of a fiery cloud—she cannot think or even feel anything besides numb, physical terror at her own smallness and helplessness. . .

And then it is done. She hangs in the void, drifting between the sullen flickers of dying, oxygen-deprived fires and the coldly brilliant face of the planet below her. Her body aches—knees, ribs, head—and she blinks away black spots as she catches her breath. Blood pounds in her head, her breath rasps.

The hiss of escaping air interrupts her attempt to gather herself. Her suit is damaged, leaking air. "Crap!" she gasps, trying to reach over her shoulders, groping for loose tubes. Her right arm won't stretch—_broken again_, she realizes—and she cannot twist her body enough to compensate. She swears again, panting, a fear as cold as the void spreading through her body. She will die, she will die choking and gasping, surrounded by uncaring stars. She knows it, but she keeps fighting, keeps trying to reach for life, until she can no longer pant but only gulp the last of her air. Her body goes numb, falters. Blackness seeps across her vision.

_Help me!_ She thinks desperately, but no one can. They are gone—her crew, her friends, her lover, all gone. She dies alone.

There is comfort in that thought. _My life for theirs._ So many have died while she lived on—it will be a relief to rest, to escape the faces and the questions and the regrets. She has never feared a lonely death as much as lonely survival. Someone else must bear that burden now.

_Kaidan_, she thinks sadly. Wishes she had said something more as they parted.

_Too late._

Her last breath wheezes through her lips. Her mind stops working even as her body jerks weakly. Then she is still.

The dead ship and her captain fall slowly towards a frozen world.


End file.
